Methodologies for Climate Tipping Points Analysis and Risk Assessments in TIPMIP

The Tipping Point Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP) is an international initiative that aims to systematically improve our understanding of potential tipping dynamics in different components of the Earth system and to assess the associated uncertainties (www.tipmip.org). By linking and evaluating different models through a systematic framework, TIPMIP aims to fill critical knowledge gaps in Earth system and climate risks by improving their assessment at different levels of anthropogenic forcing and associated long-term commitments and irreversibilities. The Methods and Risk Assessment Working Group of TIPMIP will further develop the methodological foundations of this systematic approach to the study of tipping dynamics in domain-specific and coupled Earth system numerical models to support future assessment reports and comprehensive risk analyses. In this contribution, we introduce the Methods and Risk Assessment Working Group within TIPMIP, and highlight relevant lines of methodological development to be pursued, including: (i) systematic and automated detection of tipping points and critical transitions in model output and Earth observation data for TIPMIP (e.g, the TOAD framework), (ii) detection of non-linear regime shifts in time series data for TIPMIP beyond amplitude shifts, e.g. transitions between more regular and more erratic variability (e.g. the pyunicorn toolkit), and (iii) probabilistic analysis and emulator approaches of risks for triggering tipping events and cascading tipping dynamics at different levels of anthropogenic forcing (e.g. the pycascades approach).